Tuesday, March 4, 2014

We've been busy... LASER SCANNING

Maybe you happened to catch the article in Building Design + Construction Magazine about the Top 5 Trends in BIM/VDC, but regardless, it's time for an update to our Gilbane VDC blog!

Since purchasing our first FARO Focus 3D back in August (2013) we've undertaken a fair number of projects.

FARO Focus 3D 120S: (Always Hold with Two Hands!)

Physics Building at Miami University, Oxford Ohio

Food Manufacturing Facility, Ohio

NIH Project, Washington DC

Penn State University HUB, State College PA

Central Utility Tunnel in Chicago

Food Processing Facility, Ohio

Life Science Project, Boston MA

Site Logistics at USC, Los Angeles

Architecture Renovation, Phoenix AZ

Office Fit-Out, Boston MA

Clemson University, South Carolina

Central Utility Plant in Florida

Airport Project, Boston MA

California Courthouse, Madera CA

Confidential Project, Texas

Penn State University, State College PA

Laser Scanning to Capture Slab Edge Conditions in New England

From an Return on Investment (ROI) perspective, we believe the laser scanner paid for itself in the first two weeks of use (On projects #1 & #2). Every other project since then has just added value... it's added so much value, that by the time we hit project #7, we purchased our second laser scanner. The second scanner is project assigned and primarily sees use verifying construction tolerances on a job with massive amounts of model-based prefab and a full time VDC team. It also plays a secondary role facilitating laser scanning around the Northeast.

Observations

Don't argue dimensions with me, I'm using laser beams.

Over the past 7 months we've had a number of cases where the field team, trade contractors, or architects have argued with us about dimensions of existing conditions. Over the past 7 months, we've been right every time. These challenges are fun and entertaining, because it underscores the fact that BIM & VDC, no matter how established we think it is, is still an emerging technology.

Final Thoughts: don't listen to a VDC advocate. Listen to some of our trade contractors:

“It was
especially useful since we were working in an old existing building that was
not everywhere square and level. And it also showed greater detail than
the paper drawings and the 3d models.”

-Plumbing Contractor

“…it was a
huge help on [walking] trades through
the building…
One of
the benefits I found from the scan is not having to make numerous field visits
to verify the building structure.”

-Sheet Metal
Contractor

In future blog posts we'll talk through our workflows and show some more deliverables and uses, but stay tuned for more updates in the future.